


and I don't even own a TV

by Anonymous



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Gen, Kid Fic, Misunderstandings, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-17 22:44:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12375699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Jason doesn't understand how Janets or babies are made, but that's not going to stop him from being the dopest dad ever.





	and I don't even own a TV

Unsurprisingly, the first hint of trouble came from Jason. Chidi was hardly a font of action and spontaneity when he _didn't_ know his every move was being monitored by denizens of the Bad Place to see how thoroughly they were torturing him, Tahani was accomplished at pretending everything was fine when she was anything but, and Eleanor seemed to relish the thought of beating the Bad Place at its own game. 

(Michael did think that choosing Eleanor might have been his primary mistake. When they were planning how to fake going along with Vicki's scheme, she had this smug little smile that never slipped off her face. Nothing with only thirty-two teeth, and those that small and that flat at that, had any business being so unnerving.)

Jason was throwing dynamite into the lake. From a boat which was in the middle of the lake. Or was, until a small explosion pushed it closer to the side. 

Michael waited to make sure Jason did not have another stick of dynamite ready to throw, then strode out to the boat.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asked Jason, before realizing that Jason's female companion wasn't Eleanor or Tahani or Janet.

"We're fishing," said Jason. There were dead fish floating on top of the water. Well, parts of dead fish. Jason waved at them to make his point. "Do you want to try?"

"Of course I don't want to-- Why are you fishing?"

"I thought it would be a good family bondage exercise," said Jason. "You know how you said Janet and I got married in a couple of past lives?"

Michael climbed over the side of the boat and took a seat. "That's not what they were, and that's not Janet."

"No duh," said Jason. "It's only Bad-to-the-bone-Janet Mendoza! Me and Janet's badass daughter from a past life!"

The Bad Janet was scooping dead fish out of the water, plucking out their eyes, and throwing the rest back. She saw Michael watching her and flicked a fish spine in his direction.

"Jason," he said slowly, "how many times have I explained to you what a Janet is?"

"Dunno," said Jason. "You keep wiping my memories. But this one is my kid! She has Janet's face and she likes farts, just like me!"

The Bad Janet, still giving Michael the stink eye, lifted one cheek off the bench and farted as if to prove this. Michael wasn't really worried about her telling anyone. Bad Janets were extremely unimpressed by authority and had a short memory for anything that happened outside their phones. He'd have been surprised by her willingness to go along with Jason's fishing fiasco, but it looked like she was Instagramming the fish eyes, and she probably had something she was supposed to be doing elsewhere that she didn't want to do.

"Okay," he said, "but everyone back there thinks you've been rebooted, so you don't know that you and Janet were married."

"Duh," said the Bad Janet, rolling her eyes. "Why do you think we're out here on the lake?"

"You're making a lot of noise out here on the lake," said Michael, "and if anyone came out to check what that noise was, they would see the two of you, and you, Bad Janet--"

"Bad-to-the-bone-Janet," Jason corrected.

"--are not supposed to be in this neighborhood."

The Bad Janet farted at him again. It was eye-wateringly unpleasant, probably due to the cheese chili onion dorito poptarts she and Jason were eating. (Bad Janets were capable of procuring human food, but only the version of it that would be prepared by Taco Bell. Welcome to the Bad Place, indeed.) "You're not my supervisor."

Which had been his point. He turned to Jason. "What does Janet think of this?"

"She told me this long-ass story about buds and obelisks and how abstinence-only sex ed was statistically the worst, but then she said that taking responsibility for another living thing was a good way to help me become a doper person. And even Chidi said it was a good idea!"

Michael very nearly asked how spending time with a Bad Janet was supposed to make anyone a better person except by contrast, but caught himself. Son of a bench, he sounded so _ethical_.

"But," continued Jason, "he might have thought I meant I was getting a houseplant because I was telling him about this cactus I had for like two weeks before me and Pillboy tried to smoke it. Which did not turn out so good, so we burned the rest and sold the ashes to some dudes down at Omega Tau Phi."

"But you're not going to try to smoke Bad Janet. Or sell her to some soon-to-be-cannibal frat boys." Michael hated that this was something he had to ask in the first place. Maybe his primary mistake was picking Jason. Maybe his mistake was deciding to subject himself to humans in the first place. He could have gone with a neighborhood where the ground was all rusty nails and the only noise was Nickelback's so-called greatest hits cranked up until the humans' brains dribbled out of their ears. It wasn't artistic and it wasn't ambitious, but it wouldn't have led to him being blackmailed by a diva from the dregs of the third circle and/or facing Sean's wrath.

"No way, homie. I am going to make sure she is fed and healthy and emotionally supported, so that she can grow up to be a doper person like her dad and a doper Janet like her mom," said Jason, throwing another stick of dynamite into the lake. "I mean, all sorts of things could go wrong for her without parental guidance. She could even turn out like Eleanor, who is so broken by her broken home that she told me this was a bad idea. Because when is family a bad idea? And what will happen to Bad-to-the-bone Janet if I don't pass on my life skillz and another bag of flaming Cheetos to her?"

Half a trout landed on Michael's knee. It was just a construct of a fish, but it looked very surprised and dismayed. Michael felt a tiny, impossible bit of empathy for it.

"I'll starve," said Bad Janet, back at her phone. 

"I thought you were making caviar from the fish we caught."

She sighed. "Whatever, old man. Got any more Four Loko?"

"Yes," said Jason, and tossed her a can. She caught it one-handed, still tapping away at her phone. "I will let you have the last grape-flavored one, even thought it is my favorite, because I know it is your favorite too." He turned to Michael. "See? That is parental sacrifice. I am such a good dad."

Michael brushed the fish head back into the water. "So, that's fishing and playing catch with poison," he said. 'What other life skills is Bad Janet learning?"

"Not to buy bath salts from disreputable dealers," recited the Bad Janet, "and to remove a cactus's spines before you try ingesting it." Then she brightened and almost sounded like Good Janet when she said," And I can belch the national anthem," but not when she proceeded to do so.

Jason clapped so hard he almost fell out of the boat. "That's my girl," he said. He was beaming with hideous human emotions.

Michael banished the dynamite because it would draw attention to the boat and that was bad. Not out of spite. Or seething jealousy that Jason got to be happy with what he thought was his creation. 

_That_ was why he banished the oars.


End file.
